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As I get older, the more I feel like Batman is billionaire propaganda. Like I get that it's fiction. But they want us to root for the billionaire and that fucking annoys me.
This is the subtext of the Nolan trilogy. Batman makes everything worse and literally everyone tells him that to his face, but he doesn't listen due to belief in his own exceptionalism. The only good thing he ever does is at the end of the third movie he fucks off forever.
My man, if every billionaire had the ethics and morals of batman we'd be a much better place.
Not everything in life is a conspiracy theory. Him being a billionaire is a cool concept precisely because most billionaires are assholes. Not to mention it's the only way he could afford all his gadgets.
He could instead afford to do something significant about climate change, but no. "He's a cool guy."
Bruce Wayne already is.
He is the single biggest charity funder in the entirety of Gotham, he helps the homeless, gives criminals jobs so they can get their life straight, he is like the complete opposite of our billionaires.
Read this comic if you want to see the real Batman at the end:
https://mediachomp.com/harley-quinn-and-poison-ivy-save-a-little-girl/
Sure. But he's close enough with a guy who is personally about .3*.7=one fifth responsible for global emissions, and apparently hasn't thought to confront him about it until now?
99% sure that wasn't from an official Batman comic.
When Batman was created no-one even knew the term climate change...
Again, it's a fucking comic ffs
Which is a more fun story to read, billionaire fights cool and wacky crime villains or billionaire solves climate crisis?
I felt they were using the fact that Batman is an orphan, and being a billionaire is an excuse to explain how he can fund his... hobby?
But I could see the billionaire propaganda aspect as well. I guess it depends on the author's intent.
I definitely doubt the average comic author is pro billionaire. I think having an absurdly rich protagonist is just interesting for plot, not just does it easily justify the funding, but it easily generates a lot of plot hooks.
Growing up, I absolutely loved Peter Parker as just being the average broke kid, but I was never excited by the plot that generated that was largely school drama or conversations in small apartments.
On the other hand, there are plenty of cool things that Bruce Wayne gets to do. Sometimes he blends in with high society functions and you get an almost James Bond style investigation and sometimes you capture that Dracula style recluse skulking in his enormous manor, and both of those are very evocative even before you consider how it funds his heroics.
The question is what were they thinking on 1939, any comics that came after Batman was popular are just stuck with the formula.
Basically. Batman being broke without a regular job is the Punisher minus the guns.
The wealth part does read differently in 2024 after 44 years of Reaganomics and screening for psychopathic tendencies when looking for CEO candidates.
It's right-wing propaganda in general.
Who's the hero? One of the richest men in the city.
Who are his allies? The cops.
Who are the enemies?
- An immigrant who wears a mask
- A psychiatrist
- A psychologist
- A female environmentalist
- A male environmentalist
What happens when his enemies are defeated? They are sent to a mental hospital... a mental hospital that is falling apart and chronically underfunded. That leads to them escaping, giving Batman another excuse to go beat them up.
If Mr. Wayne is a billionaire and very influential in city politics, the way they always portray him, shouldn't he be advocating tax increases on the wealthy, and using that money to fix up the city... or at the very minimum to fix up Gotham Asylum?
Who are his allies? The cops.
No, just one cop. Right? I'm not super familiar with all versions of Batman lore but I'm pretty sure it's a typical plot point that only Commissioner Gordon likes Batman.
Commissioner Gordon is his buddy, and they work together. But, it's not like he's otherwise suspicious of the cops. Instead he thinks the problem is just a few corrupt cops but that the overall police institution is wonderful.
Come to think of it, growing up I remember thinking of certain scenes, like he goes to temples to meditate, "to find himself" or "fight his demons" or whatever, or joining fight club-style events with randos, again "to find himself" or for the fun of it, who knows - and even then I was thinking "damn, I guess it's good to have that much money to act like a clueless brat!"
I do agree a lot of stories about "finding yourself" are like that (Eat Pray Love for instance). But to be fair in the Nolan movies he went out into the world with no money. Now, if he somehow formed another billion dollar company then it would have become full on capitalist propaganda, lol.
But did he have millions in his bank accounts or not? He had a damn butler and took a Russian ballet crew on a sailing trip!
If he went into the world "with no money," it was still his choice. At any point he could have said "you know what, fuck this, I'm coming back to my mansion." Not everyone has that luxury.
Most superheroes are built on the idea that the world is unjust. The people who acquire power often do so through sheer chance rather than any merit of their own, but it's still their responsibility to use that power ethically, even if society fundamentally isn't built for people like them and they have to adopt a secret identity to have any chance of a normal life.
Batman's different. He was born with a great deal of wealth and power, sure, but then he took it upon himself to acquire even more power and put himself even higher above the people around him. He's exactly who society is built for, but he wears a mask anyway to shield himself from accountability.
Somehow, we're supposed to think of him as a hero.
Nah it's just an excuse for where his character gets his cool toys.
Definitely how it started, but it's gone through so many incarnations over the years. I'm pretty sure they've directly lampshaded your point, having batman come out and say that he knows he could do more good just by setting up more social programs, but he acts how he does because he's fundamentally broken.